This Week's Bestsellers: September 12, 2016

Penny’s Great Fortune

Canadian author Louise Penny published her first novel, Still Life, in the U.S. in 2006, launching the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries. In the decade since, books in the series, which is set in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, have garnered numerous accolades, including five Agatha Awards for best novel. This week, the 12th title, A Great Reckoning, debuts at #1 in Hardcover Fiction, and #3 in the country overall, thanks to the highest first-week print-unit sales of any book in the series.

(See all of this week's bestselling books.)

Marching On

Georgia Congressman John Lewis has been detailing his work with the civil rights movement in the three-part graphic memoir series March, coauthored by Andrew Aydin, his digital director and policy advisor, and illustrated by Nate Powell, whose Swallow Me Whole won a 2009 Eisner Award for best original graphic novel. March: Book Three pubbed August 2 and debuts this week at #22 on our Trade Paperback list. Book one was released in 2013 to positive reviews, and Book two, which pubbed in 2015, won the Eisner Award for best reality-based work in July this year. All three volumes had strong sales this week.

Print-Unit Sales for Week Ending September 4

Hill Screen News

Nathan Hill’s buzzy first novel, The Nix, lands at #9 on our Hardcover Fiction list. How loud is the buzz? New York called the 640-pager “fall’s splashiest debut novel.” John Irving, in a New York Times interview, praised the author’s “Dickensian range.” And so on. This all happened prepublication, and in the days since, the buzz has only gotten louder: on September 8, Deadline reported that Warner Bros. is working on a TV adaptation; J.J. Abrams and Hill are executive producing, and Meryl Streep is in talks to star.

New & Notable

A Torch Against the Night

Sabaa Tahir

#2 Children’s Frontlist Fiction

This is the sequel to Tahir’s 2015 YA fantasy debut, An Ember in the Ashes, which has sold 101K copies in hardcover and trade paper.

Dog Man

Dav Pilkey

#4 Children’s Frontlist Fiction

Author-illustrator Pilkey, of Captain Underpants fame, launches a spin-off series about a half-human, half-canine crime fighter.

The Jealous Kind

James Lee Burke

#11 Hardcover Fiction

Burke’s new entry into the Holland family saga—each a standalone novel featuring a descendent of Hackberry Holland—is a coming-of-age story set in 1952 Texas.

Clean House

Tom Fitton

#4 Hardcover

Nonfiction

Fitton, head of Judicial Watch (described on its website as “a conservative, nonpartisan educational foundation”), delves into, in the words of the subtitle, Our Government’s Secrets and Lies.

Top 10 Overall

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.